As co-head of the firm’s IP & Technology Transactions Group, what are the biggest opportunities coming up for your practice?
Our Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions Group has grown rapidly in recent years. It now encompasses five partners and more than 25 other lawyers; we also recently expanded our capabilities in our London and San Francisco offices. This has mirrored the firm’s robust buildout of its transactional practice, which has allowed our group to work on some of the largest, most impactful deals of recent years. I’m focused on continuing to expand our capabilities to ensure we can address our clients’ most critical IP issues. It will be crucial for our platform to respond to rapid changes and emerging issues in the IP market so that we remain on the cutting edge of the space.
You advise clients across an array of sectors, from semiconductors to biotech to e-commerce. How do you stay ahead of the latest developments in such a wide range of fields?
With the variety of clients and sectors that we support, it’s important to tap into the expertise and knowledge of colleagues across the entire firm. Paul, Weiss takes a multidisciplinary approach to matters, leveraging specialists across a wide range of subjects, and has long nurtured a strong culture of collaboration. We have applied the same approach in our IP & Technology Transactions Group, whose members have deep experience across the IP spectrum – whether that is in patents, trade secrets or other IP assets. Our team has worked across the full range of IP deals impacting most industries and asset classes, which has allowed us to stay at the forefront of developments and address the most critical issues that may arise.
How is the M&A landscape hitting patent valuation practices in the tech space, and how do you expect these trends might evolve in the next five years?
As a lawyer working on tech transactions, I focus most closely on how to protect intellectual property and maximise IP value across the deals that we do. Given the complexity of deals in the tech space – particularly amid the growth of emerging technologies – it requires bespoke, creative solutions to ensure companies’ most important assets are protected. This plays right into our strengths at the firm, where we frequently work on complex transactions involving a range of IP issues.
What, in your opinion, are some of the greatest threats and opportunities offered by AI – and how can companies best avoid or take advantage of them?
AI is already transforming technology, financial services, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and other industries through its ability to perform tasks like coding, customer service, due diligence and inventory management. As AI continues to evolve, the potential generative-AI use cases for companies will skyrocket as well. That being said, greater AI implementation has also created greater challenges, such as algorithmic bias, disinformation, copyright and licensing concerns and regulatory uncertainty. This will require companies to establish appropriate guardrails to ensure that AI is being used responsibly and understand potential legal liabilities and regulatory concerns.
Given the potential pitfalls around AI, companies might want to consider utilising legal counsel to address key questions on its implementation, valuation and licensing. At Paul, Weiss, we’ve structured our AI team to include technologists in addition to our leading regulatory and transactional experts. Our clients include both AI developers and implementers, giving us a unique perspective on the challenges faced across the AI lifecycle. We also collaborate with these clients to help them license and safely implement these technologies into their operations.
How have client demands changed over the course of your career, and how have you adapted your practice to meet these?
Given my IP and tech focus, client demands have only gotten more complicated as emerging technologies create a host of new challenges. Each matter is different, which keeps my work novel and exciting. Considering the technologies involved in my deals, I need to be very creative in how I approach legal solutions.
In addition to the expansion of our IP & Technology Transactions Group to encompass new geographies and capabilities, the firm has continually adapted to evolving demands by bringing in experts who understand emerging challenges and can provide the guidance to navigate them. It all comes back to the multidisciplinary focus that I mentioned earlier, which allows our firm to tackle the pressing and often unprecedented issues that keep our clients up at night.